Monthly Archives: October 2013

Happy Halloween! I wanted to put a lot more of these up, but I wound up pressed for time. There’s always next year, I suppose. Anyhow, here you are, my favorite slashers, I hope some of you watch one or two of these tonight.

(I’d like to note that I do not consider Nightmare on Elm Street or The Texas Chainsaw Massacre to be slashers, therefore, they ain’t on this list.)

Halloween draws closer! We’ve only got about two weeks of October left, so here are some more great movies to check out. My last list of Haunted House movies brought to mind the Cabin in the Woods subgenre, a small group of films, but one very near to my blackened, mechanical heart. Here are some of my favorites.

The ULTIMATE cabin in the woods movie, and my favorite horror film of all time. The thing about The Evil Dead is that it is such a pure, and perfect example of the Cabin in the Woods scenario, that it’s basically the first, and the last, word in the genre. Think of an important Cabin in the Woods horror flick that came before The Evil Dead… Cape Fear, almost? Straw Dogs? Night of the Living Dead establishes most of the genre conventions, but it does so without the “Woods” part of the equation, which I feel is actually an important element, because it uses the fear of isolation as part of the constant threat to the protagonist. There was Equinox, which is another huge influence on The Evil Dead (allegedly), and that will show up later in this list, but mostly The Evil Dead was the first really focused and pure Cabin in the Woods movie, and it’s so successful that made the Cabin in the Woods scenario cliché all by itself. Every Cabin in the Woods film from that point onward becomes a reference, parody, or homage to The Evil Dead.

Last I’d heard, Sam Raimi denies that he had ever seen this movie when he made The Evil Dead, but a lot of people have trouble believing that given the overwhelming similarities between the two. I don’t know who to believe, but the two are close enough that The Evil Dead could have been a remake. It’s certainly closer than Carpenter’s ‘The Thing’ is to Nyby and Hawks’ ‘The Thing From Another World.’

Portland, OR area artist/musician (and good friend of mine) Seth King (band camp site seen at http://wastemusic.bandcamp.com/ ) has requested a list of Haunted House movies, and I couldn’t be happier to oblige. In honor of October, here is another list; my twenty favorite Haunted House movies.

8. Purani Haveli ~ 1989, Shyam and Tulsi Ramsay (This is a super awesome Bollywood horror film. Highly recommended. I’m no expert on the sub-genre, as I’ve probably seen less than ten Bollywood horror films in total anyway, but of all the ones I have seen, this is my favorite.)

Halloween is a week closer, so I’ve got another list of awesome horror movies to recommend. This time, I got vampires.

The cover of the ‘Let The Right One In’ DVD/Blu Ray has a quote on it, it reads “BEST. VAMPIRE. MOVIE. EVER.” And who does this quote come from? Just some dude pretty much. Some critic from some newspaper, and while ‘Let The Right One In” is very good, it is definitely not the best vampire movie ever. There have been many, many vampire movies made in the last one hundred years, and while most of our cinematic achievements have been retroactively rendered irrelevant in the aftermath of how profoundly detrimental the ‘Twilight’ franchise has been to human culture, there remain countless classic vampire films that can be enjoyed if you have Netflix, or if you somehow still have access to a video store that isn’t a friggin’ vending machine. Here are some of my favorites;

I love this time of year, the time leading up to Halloween where suddenly my constant, year round need for horror films and monster related content seems less unusual, and when at any time of day there is, without question, a monster movie on somewhere. It’s super, super awesome, and as such, I’ve chosen to try and participate as much as I can by sharing movie recommendations with you throughout the month. My first list of recommends is going to be my top ten favorite zombie films ever, since people just can’t friggin’ get enough zombies these days. If you’re going to watch them, you may as well watch the best!